Det er ikke ofte jeg anmelder noe annet enn skjønnlitteratur her. Denne leste jeg i forbindelse med master-oppgaven, der vi skrev et kapittel om ulike politiske/økonomiske tilnærminger til økonomisk krise. Nå har Thatcher alltid vært en helt for meg, så det å lese denne - og så se "Jernkvinnen" med Meryl Streep i hovedrollen var supert. "Hun er en av de mest kontroversielle figurene innen moderne politikk, elsket, hedret, hatet, fryktet - opphøyd og devaluert, noen ganger av samme person i samme setning" sier Berlinski. Det er sant, alle har en mening om Margaret. Mitt eget syn er at hun er fascinerende og jeg mener politikken hennes har endret verden - for det meste til det bedre.
Forfatter: Claire Berlinski
Tittel: There is no alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters
Første setning: This is not a conventional biography of Margaret Thatcher.
I et nøtteskall: Vi kan ikke kjøpe eller låne oss ut av en økonomisk krise. Margaret Thatcher implementerte god husholdningsøkonomi i et helt land. Med krisen som henger over EU, er F.A Hayeks teorier, som lå til grunn for Margarets økonomiske politikk, aktuelle som aldri før.
Favoritt-utdrag:
"What she managed to do, more effectively than any other politician in history - including Ronald Reagan- was convey a very particular message about socialism. It was not only that socialism was an economically indifferent way to organize human societies. It was not onlu that communist regimes had in the twentieth century drenched the world in blood. It was that socialism itself - in all its incarnations, wherever and however it was applied - was morally corrupting. Socialism turned good citizens into bad ones; it turned strong nations into weak ones, it promoted vice and discouraged virtue; and even when it did not lead directly to the Gulags, it transformed formerly hard working and self-reliant men and women into whining, weak and flabby loafers. Socialism was not a fine idea that had been misapplied; it was an inherently wicked idea. This was Thatcher's signal contribution to the debate."
"In the middle of his speech, Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Opposition, interrupted. She stood up. She reached into her handbag, extracted a copy of Hayek's Constitution of Liberty, held it up before the audience, then slammed it on the table. "This,"she said,"is what we believe!"
"At the age of fifty four, she became the most unpopular prime minister in the history of Britain. By no standards could her first years in office be termed a success." ..."Thus the achievements of the first years of Thatcherism: Her economic policy was ostensibly a disaster, and far from taming the unions, she had proven herself, as the union leaders claimed, a bitch, to be sure, but their bitch. Had her time in power ended here, she would have been noted by history as a footnote and a minor curiosity".
"The remaining controversy about Thatcher's economic policy, then, is not whether she strengthened Britain's global economic position. She did. It is whether she did it at an unacceptable cost, and whether those costs were the inevitable price of transformation. Those costs - two painful recessions, a massive growth in inequality, and the creation of what seems to be a permanent British underclass - do indeed seem to have been high."
"What is more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity."
Tanker i ettertid: Jeg elsket denne boka. Ja, den er skrevet av en person som helt klart liker Thatcher, men som også klarer å ta stilling til all kritikken. Hvordan vet vi at Thatchers økonomiske politikk var den rette, selv om den var upopulær og kom med en høy kostnad? Vel, fordi alle som har sittet i regjering etter henne har videreført den. Tony Blair kan kalle det "Third way" til han blir blå, men sannheten er at det er Thatcher's vei.
Anbefales: siden alle har en mening om Thatcher, bør de lese denne boken - så det i allefall blir en velinformert en.
Karakter: A
Forfatter: Claire Berlinski
Tittel: There is no alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters
Første setning: This is not a conventional biography of Margaret Thatcher.
I et nøtteskall: Vi kan ikke kjøpe eller låne oss ut av en økonomisk krise. Margaret Thatcher implementerte god husholdningsøkonomi i et helt land. Med krisen som henger over EU, er F.A Hayeks teorier, som lå til grunn for Margarets økonomiske politikk, aktuelle som aldri før.
Favoritt-utdrag:
"What she managed to do, more effectively than any other politician in history - including Ronald Reagan- was convey a very particular message about socialism. It was not only that socialism was an economically indifferent way to organize human societies. It was not onlu that communist regimes had in the twentieth century drenched the world in blood. It was that socialism itself - in all its incarnations, wherever and however it was applied - was morally corrupting. Socialism turned good citizens into bad ones; it turned strong nations into weak ones, it promoted vice and discouraged virtue; and even when it did not lead directly to the Gulags, it transformed formerly hard working and self-reliant men and women into whining, weak and flabby loafers. Socialism was not a fine idea that had been misapplied; it was an inherently wicked idea. This was Thatcher's signal contribution to the debate."
"In the middle of his speech, Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Opposition, interrupted. She stood up. She reached into her handbag, extracted a copy of Hayek's Constitution of Liberty, held it up before the audience, then slammed it on the table. "This,"she said,"is what we believe!"
"At the age of fifty four, she became the most unpopular prime minister in the history of Britain. By no standards could her first years in office be termed a success." ..."Thus the achievements of the first years of Thatcherism: Her economic policy was ostensibly a disaster, and far from taming the unions, she had proven herself, as the union leaders claimed, a bitch, to be sure, but their bitch. Had her time in power ended here, she would have been noted by history as a footnote and a minor curiosity".
"The remaining controversy about Thatcher's economic policy, then, is not whether she strengthened Britain's global economic position. She did. It is whether she did it at an unacceptable cost, and whether those costs were the inevitable price of transformation. Those costs - two painful recessions, a massive growth in inequality, and the creation of what seems to be a permanent British underclass - do indeed seem to have been high."
"What is more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity."
Tanker i ettertid: Jeg elsket denne boka. Ja, den er skrevet av en person som helt klart liker Thatcher, men som også klarer å ta stilling til all kritikken. Hvordan vet vi at Thatchers økonomiske politikk var den rette, selv om den var upopulær og kom med en høy kostnad? Vel, fordi alle som har sittet i regjering etter henne har videreført den. Tony Blair kan kalle det "Third way" til han blir blå, men sannheten er at det er Thatcher's vei.
Anbefales: siden alle har en mening om Thatcher, bør de lese denne boken - så det i allefall blir en velinformert en.
Karakter: A
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